Just wanted to take a moment and wish a Merry XMas to everyone that frequents my little corner of the World Wide Web! Geopolitically it’s been an interesting year, and I’m sure 2010 is going to be more interesting still… so let’s hope we all make it through OK!

Best wishes to everyone!

RadMan(the)

OK, not really…

… no actually we finally had our kitchen island installed! Yay! About bloody time. Installation was originally slatted for Thursday, but that was not with my consultation and I wasn’t available. I re-scheduled for Friday, but got a call the day before telling me that they couldn’t make it… so Monday it is!

All told we are happy with the island and the installation. That being said, we were NOT impressed by the company we went with. Suncrest Cabinets is their name. We found the salesperson wanting both in communication capability (VERY poor English) and his willingness to take the time with us. The installer that showed up also was not impressive. We were concerned about the horror stories one hears regarding home renos, so we decided to be as specific as possible about what we wanted and that we expected a perfect job (and what that meant in real terms). We basically just got a snicker from the guy and a comment about how long he’s been doing this.

We also got negative reinforcement from the guy about our choices of where to put it exactly. It’s one thing to tell the customer your opinion (which we solicited). It is another to make negative comments about the space available after the installation is finished. For the record, we actually foresaw the limitations of our selections and are quite happy with how things turned out! In fact, while the island itself is more dominating than we thought it would be, the space it seems to take up is also less, so on all counts we are quite happy!

Not to mention that this turkey was slack on clean up and frankly seemed most concerned with getting outta here. Well, good riddance. We’re happy as peach with having an island and it’s placement.

And what about Suncrest. Well, if they weren’t the original cabinet makers (to match the existing kitchen cabinetry) we would NEVER have gone with them after the sales floor experience. Needless to say, we shall NOT be recommending them.

Anyhoo, here’s a couple of before and after shots.

Even though I’ve become a little cynical and jaded over the past while, from time to time life seems to throw things at us that merit a moment of appreciation. Mid-October clouds can be quite impressive.

Going through old shots. Here are a few more shots in the Thompson area, March ‘09.

A – For the first 2 shots I exposed for the sun (so basically really underexposed the shot) and went black & white. These smaller versions don’t do the shots justice, but I was certainly pleased with the kind of solitary feeling I got.

B – The next 2 shots were taken at Pisew Falls outside Thompson. Quite neat to the the snow and ice formations from the fall’s mist.

The rest are just some neat shots.

OK,

So I’ve been looking into trying to make the picture pop-up box resize to a person’s screen as needed. I think I’ve found something that will work. It’s called Shadowbox (instead of lightbox).

Dad, let me know if the image popup resizes properly to your screen. If it doesn’t I might have to go back to lightbox. Until I modify all the entries, older posts will not display the thumbnails correctly, so do not be alarmed.

The important difference is the navigation is slightly different. The buttons are in the lower right corner, see below…